A Chance To Live
by Artimus Knyght
Summary: Set in Mass Effect 3 with a slight twist, please read and review, rated for maturity (of which I have none lol) and I still suck at summaries.
1. Chapter 1

A Chance To Live

She was floating in the darkness, no pain, no feeling, just silence and peace. She had done it, she had destroyed the Reapers, saved the Galaxy, ended the cycle, and now she could join her love in the next life. 'Liara', even thinking about what had happened caused immense misery. Watching her get hit by Harbingers beam had filled her with such hatred for the Reapers, for the illusive man and, when she met him, for the Catalyst. She had wanted, no, _needed_ to avenge her fallen lover, and that need had fuelled her onto the Citadel.

Then the Illusive man showed up, made her shoot Anderson. Unfortunately the son of a bitch had become wracked with indecision and shot himself before she could get free and do it herself. When the Catalyst had given her a choice she had laughed. 'A choice' she had said 'there is no choice. You killed my bondmate, now I'm going to end you and your pets.'

Now she was floating in the darkness, waiting to be reunited with Liara. 'Liara'. It had never registered with her that Javik had been right beside Liara, she never even realised that he must have died too. All that had mattered to her was reaching Liara through the smoke and flames, but just as she had been about to reach her, she too had been hit by Harbingers beam. When she had finally arisen, she couldn't see Liara's body anywhere, and then, all she could see was a red haze, one that hadn't fully dissipated until she began firing her weapon at the red glass.

'I did it Liara' she thought 'I did it for you.'

She felt a comfort, an embrace, something was happening, but she didn't know what. She couldn't really explain it, or how she knew, but it was like she was being assessed, and whatever it was that was doing the assessing, it approved of her. It was pushing her forward, and she could see a light. She was being pushed towards the afterlife.

'I'm coming Liara' and then she felt something. A sharp pain through her chest and she jolted. Confusion swept through her as she felt it again. It was as she felt it the third time that it happened. She jolted forwards and then back and her back landed on something solid. She heard voices, blurred and rushed.

"We've … pulse … blood … dropping." She couldn't make sense of the voices and felt like she did when she first woke up on Lazarus Station, but it was different, no Miranda, no Wilson, just blurry figures of doctors rushing about. Her eyes closed, funny, she hadn't even realised she had opened them, and she drifted off into unconsciousness.

When she next opened her eyes she expected to see the golden gate, or something along those lines, instead she saw the ceiling of a medbay, she moved her head around and looked around. There was a doctor over by her desk, but it wasn't Chakwas, or Michel. She lifted her hand to her forehead and groaned, that got the doctors attention, who came running over, her Omni-tool powering up and scanning her within seconds.

"Well you certainly kept us on our toes Commander," she said, her voice was pleasant, "you flat lined twice you know. We were sure you weren't going to make it. Your recovery has been nothing but a miracle," no, she was still alive, she was sure she was going to cry, "you know Admiral Anderson came into see you to request you personally on the Normandy, I guess N7s do get the best assignments," wait, Anderson's alive as well, maybe Liara survived too, "but you have three months to get back in shape before you can hop on board that ship. So how do you feel Commander Hanson?" WAIT! HANSON!

"Who the hell is Hanson?!" she exclaimed, starting to panic, "What's going on here?" the doctor nodded before typing something onto a data pad.

"Relax Commander Hanson," she said in a soothing voice, "it seems that you are experiencing memory loss, probably due to the electrical pulses in your brain faltering when your heart stopped, it doesn't always happen, but it's common enough. Your memories should come back, but it may take some time, I'll see about getting you your files for you to read. Hopefully that'll jump start you memory."

She took some deep breaths and calmed herself down. She couldn't go blabbing that she was Shepard if this woman thought she was this Hanson person. Either the woman was crazy or whatever had sent her back to this life had sent her to the first available vessel.

"How long have I been out? What date is it?"

"You've been out for two months, it's now the 14th of January 2186, I'm sorry to say you were out through Christmas," the doctor typed a few more words into her data pad before she walked over to her desk and put it down, either not noticing the gaping look on her face, or putting it down to having missed Christmas, "Now I'm going to see about getting you those records, the button on the wall to your right will call me if you need anything, Is there anything I can get you while I'm still here." She nodded.

"Water," the doctor nodded and left the room, returning shortly with a glass of water before leaving again. She sighed and took a sip of water. It had been a shock to learn that she had been thrust back in time. It was currently three months before the reapers arrived. A part of her was tempted to call Liara on Mars, but Liara didn't know who this person was, and Liara was in love with Shepard, wait, she meant her, the younger her, the her that would die again, and that would break Liara's heart. There was only one thing she could do, make sure this person made it to the citadel before Shepard, so that Liara could be happy. She felt an uncomfortable pressure in her head and somehow knew that whatever entity had put her here was still communicating with her. It obviously disapproved of that Idea, it didn't take her long to realise this would create a paradox.

Hmm, the 14th of January, that was the day Ashley was on the news being praised by the Alliance Brass, it couldn't hurt to watch it, she hadn't had the chance the first time around, she had heard about it later from Vega. It would put off trying to think up a plan in what seemed to be an impossible situation. She fiddled with her Omni-tool and brought up the news vid. There, on stage, was Real Admiral Mikhailovich giving a long winded speech. She picked up her glass of water and settled back to watch.

"… and so, without further ado, I present to you a Marine above and beyond reproach …" When he said the name she choked slightly on the water she was gulping, thinking she'd misheard him, but as she saw the Marine walk across the stage she spat out the water and stared at the screen. She was not only back in time, she had to be in another universe, for that was the only way she could be looking at Kaidan Alenko shaking Mikhailovich's hand.

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Thank you for reading, now please review.


	2. Chapter 2

She sat on the bed, a bunch of data pads sprawled on her lap and one in each hand, and she read about herself, or rather her new self.

She was now in the body of Lorna Hanson, a name she remembered. In her universe Lorna had died after flat lining twice, though technically she died here after flat lining twice as well; the difference being that she now occupied her body. 'I guess I better get used to being Lorna Hanson' she thought.

It was rather shocking reading about Lorna, it was like reading her own history. Lorna was born on Eden Prime in 2165, making her just twenty when she died. In 2174 one of the many Prothean artifacts on Eden Prime was found a few clicks east of Constant, the capital city of the colony. Her parents took her to the Citadel to log the find with the Council. She was left with an Asari babysitter while they went to meet with the Council. On their way back to the hotel they were staying at, their rented sky car crashed with another and both cars fell to the Presidium below. Lorna's parents were killed instantly in the crash, the other driver died of his wounds before help could arrive.

Lorna had been watching TV when the breaking news report had aired. Hearing that her parents were dead Lorna had screamed and run out of the hotel room. Her babysitter, who had been making her a snack in the kitchen at the time had gone looking for her, but not being able to find her, she had called C-SEC and listed her as missing. According to some C-SEC reports Lorna was spotted later at the edge of the crash site, tears running down her face, but when they attempted to approach her she had run away. C-SEC speculated that she joined the many duct rats on the station. Lorna had no other family and had probably understood that she would have likely been sent to an orphanage.

Lorna didn't resurface as a real person until five years later, presumably because she became too big for the ducts and because she was becoming like a mother hen to the younger children. She was often seen looking for odd jobs to do on the wards. She went traveling for days on end to find work. She even wound up on the Presidium doing some small jobs for the Consort and her acolytes, mostly delivering small things to and from the Consort. Hell, the kid read like a who's who of Asari having delivered to Councillor Tevos, Nassana Dantius, Tela Vasir, Matriarch Lidanya and even Aria T'Loak once when she was visiting the Citadel on business. The Consort became like a mother to Lorna and a grandmother to Lorna's 'kids'.

At 16 she started dating Nelyna, a greeter for Sha'ira and life seemed on the up and up, but then, barely a year later, Sovereign and the Geth attacked the Citadel. Lorna hid her kids until the coast was clear and then snuck them to the Consorts chambers, picking up a fallen C-Sec pistol on the way. She arrived to a fire fight, and proved herself a natural shot when she calmly and quickly dispatched the small group of Geth while her kids ran inside to hide. Tragically, Lorna arrived too late to save Nelyna, who had suffered many gunshot wounds attempting to protect the Chambers, and had collapsed against the wall. All Lorna had been able to do was apply some Medi-gel to ease the pain and sit with her as she drew her last breath.

Only a few weeks after the battle of the Citadel the Alliance tracked her down, now living with Sha'ira, and offered her a career as a marine. Still mourning Nelyna and feeling that she should get away for a while, she accepted. Just before her 19th birthday she received an invitation to join the N7s. The funny thing was the recommendation had come from Anderson, the same person who had recommended Shepard herself. The sad thing was that she had been on her first mission as an N7 when she was injured and died; a mission to liberate slaves from some Batarians. That didn't mean she wasn't actually N7 material, she wouldn't have made it to N7 otherwise. Lorna was a natural leader and a born soldier. She was skilled, determined and had sacrificed with the best of them. She had been the youngest person since Anderson to graduate from the programme, even Shepard from this universe and herself had graduated at 24. No, according to the report, she had dived over a bomb that was about to detonate and kill a group of slave children. Her shields and armour stopped her from dying immediately, but her injuries proved too much. She just hoped that Lorna was with Nelyna wherever she had ended up.

Shepard … Hanson ... made the decision to tell Sha'ira the truth about what happened. Sha'ira had been like a mother to Lorna and deserved to know the truth. She knew she would sound crazy, but she could convince her to start a meld and show her the truth.

She looked to the other data pad she was holding, oddly enough, it wasn't about this universes Shepard, she'd read that one first and she would think about her later. No, it was the file of Kaidan Alenko. She remember asking for Ash's file in her own universe just after her incarceration, and Anderson had delivered because she was his Protégé and Ash was an old friend, practically a sister. Ash's file had been significantly smaller than Kaidan's and she realised that this universes Shepard would have received a heavily edited version of his file, most likely it would only include things she already knew about him, just as Ash's did.

What truly surprised her was that after she died, Kaidan was recommended for the N7 programme, not so surprising was who recommended him; Udina. It was strange because the Brass usually ignored recommendations from politicians. It also explained a lot, something she hadn't been willing to think about in her own universe because Ash was like her sister; Udina had been laying the groundwork to make her/him a Spectre even then. The N7 programme was started to train up the new generations of leaders of the Alliance, but after first contact that changed. N7 became the answer to the Salarian STG, the Turian Blackwatch and the Asari Commandos, a place to train up potential Spectre Candidates. Not that everyone in the programme was listed to become a Spectre, she was listed to join the programme even before Akuze, but was listed as a potential Spectre Candidate afterwards, not that she knew this, she only found out that she was a candidate after actually becoming a Spectre, but she knew about the concept, all N7s are told. Kaidan, however, flunked out before reaching N1, he just wasn't a natural born leader, and that was pretty much a deal breaker for the programme. Even Kai Lang was a leader, unfortunately he was also psychopathic.

She dropped both Data pads and picked Shepard's back up. It was amazing, the differences between them, it really proved the 'Butterfly Effect'. This Shepard's parents were Alliance military and she had spent most of her life on star ships. This Shepard was the Hero of Elysium. Unlike herself, who grew up on Earth and was the sole survivor from Akuze. It was weird because in her universe there was no Hero of Elysium. The colony's capital city, Illyria, had been attacked; many of the citizens were killed before the Alliance arrived. Yet, in this universe, there was no Survivor of Akuze; the whole platoon had been wiped out by the Thresher Maws. It was staggering to think about, that she affected things to such a degree, that without her … she sighed … to think, there were probably many universes, hell there was probably a universe where she grew up on some colony, one where she fought on Torfan and even one where she had never joined the Alliance at all. She shivered at that last one, trying to imagine what would have happened in that universe. Well Saren would have succeeded in that universe, and the Reapers would have harvested the Galaxy once again. She shook the images from her mind, there was no point dwelling on it, she didn't live in that universe after all.

She focused on the data pad again. One thing that had been included, thankfully, were Shepard's dalliances aboard both Normandy's, even though the Alliance couldn't do anything about it as she was a Spectre and therefore outside of the chain of command. On a side thought she should have realised the Alliance would know about her relationship with Liara, there were sensors in her cabin, on both ships, that linked with the Med-Bay. They were supposed to monitor life signs so the doctor could act fast if anything happened while on board, so Chakwas would have known that Liara spent the night before Ilos in the Commanders cabin, and that they'd slept together. The data is automatically sent to the Alliance when hooked up to a comm buoy or when docked, since docks usually had a comm satellite, and while the data could be deleted, she is quite sure that Chakwas would have been too busy fixing her up after the battle of the citadel to remember to.

Back to Shepard's relationships, she was shocked to find that this Shepard was straight, or at least bi, having a relationship with Kaidan Alenko on the first Normandy. After Kaidan rejected her on Horizon Shepard had declared it over between them. She had then become intimate with Thane before leaving through the Omega-4 relay. At the same time she wanted to celebrate, it meant Liara was free. She knew it was selfish to feel happy that she had a chance of happiness while this Shepard didn't, but she had already sacrificed everything once, didn't she deserve a little happiness, and if whatever entity could give her a new life, surely it could do the same for her, or at least give her a decent afterlife with Thane.

She sighed, a happy, relaxed sigh with a small smile, and put the data pad back down before checking the time on her Omni-tool. Her eyes were drawn to the date and her smile faded. In three months the Reapers would arrive, the war would begin and she would be ready, but more than that, she would see Liara again and that thought made her heart swell.


End file.
